Archives: Apr 2010

Yes, it’s my birthday next week. Yes, I’ll be 31. Yes, I’ll be a year older. But unlike the rest of you cowards, I’ve chosen to age clumsily and profanely instead of gracefully. I will kick and scream the entire way to my grave, and drag as many young people down with me as possible.

When I get to 40, I plan to start selling crack. When I turn 50, I’ll roam my neighborhood throwing empty whiskey bottles at teenagers. When I get to 60 or so, I’ll just sit on my porch with a hose and douse anyone who comes within 40 feet of my yard. By the time I croak, I’ll be so despised that locals will just toss my wrinkled corpse into an Arby’s dumpster.

Which will be awesome, because they probably throw delicious roast beef in there.

You will do the same when your time comes, dear reader. I mean the kicking and screaming part, of course, not the hose or the Arby’s dumpster. Those are my elderly eccentricities. I’ve already called dibs on them. Find your own schtick.

Since the millions (dozens) of adoring (apathetic) fans (detractors) who read (skim) this column each week will undoubtedly be sending me fancy gifts (death threats) soon, it’s important that I tell you what I want. The answer, of course, is the same as it is for every man: Money and sex. Which one you give me depends upon your gender.

That said, there are some things you definitely should avoid giving me. For instance, a hat. Giving someone over the age of 30 a hat implies that you think they’re balding. Which I’m not. My father isn’t bald either, so don’t give me that “you can save it for later” nonsense. Anyone who buys me a hat will be given a vasectomy by force.

Don’t buy me cookies. I’m diabetic, so any gift of food or candy will be treated as attempted manslaughter. And don’t even think of using that “sugar-free” candy stuff as a loophole. Diarrhea is not an acceptable gift on one’s birthday. I ate two sugar-free York Peppermint Patties last month, and I still walk funny because of it. Anyone who buys me food will be dragged into a van and given two vasectomies.

Don’t buy me secondhand books from one of those sales the library has on occasion. It’s really cheap of you, and we both know the only reason the library has those sales is to get rid of books they suspect people have soiled with bodily fluids. It’s an entire sale full of stained books where half the pages are sticky or sealed together by snot.

Besides, I’m far too stupid to read more than one book per year. Hell, even one book is pushing it. I generally can read four pages before getting distracted by birds out the window, or an e-mail someone sent me about penile enlargement. Anyone who buys me a book will be given a vasectomy live on the internet.

Don’t buy me porn. You don’t know my pornographic preferences, and I’m certainly not going to volunteer that information to you. The way I like to see ladies defiled is none of your business, kind sir, and any guess you make has a 50/50 chance of insulting me. Anyone who buys me porn will be given a vasectomy using the plastic instruments from the board game “Operation”.

Don’t buy me pets. I live in a studio apartment the size of Gilbert Gottfried’s groin, and if it’s both me and a pet in here, one of us is going to have to die. Also, my apartment building doesn’t allow pets, and with the cool Nerf basketball hoop my friend recently got me, the tenants surrounding me are in no mood for further shenanigans. Anyone who buys me a pet will be given a vasectomy in the break room of the business where their mother works.

Don’t buy me a vasectomy. No one likes a smart ass.

Don’t buy me gift certificates to restaurants. I’m not going to take you, and then you’re going to get mad at me, and then I’m going to get mad back and rip up the gift certificate, and then that restaurant is going to get your $15 without doing a damn thing to earn it. Anyone who buys me a restaurant gift certificate will be shot out of a cannon into a full septic tank. And then a vasectomy, for continuity.

Do you see how difficult it is to buy someone like me a present? This is why it’s important to go with the old standbys: Money and sex. Neither of them will last long, especially the latter, but as a columnist for the Reader Weekly, I’m obviously in great need of both of these things. And like most columnists here, I also clearly have no idea how to get either of them without someone just giving them to me. But that’s what birthdays are for.

Todd Fenceman and Autumn Winslow, both of Cherry, MN, plan to be married June 16 in United Lutheran Church in Duluth. Autumn is incredibly pretty, while Todd is large and homely. This situation, described by psychologists as the “King of Queens/According to Jim/Family Guy/Simpsons/Still Standing/Grounded For Life/Who Framed Roger Rabbit syndrome”, is not uncommon in small towns on the Iron Range, where beautiful people sometimes neglect to venture to large cities to accurately gauge their attractiveness.

Aaron Johnson and Amanda Santana, both of Two Harbors, MN, plan to be married May 1 in Great Lakes Aquarium in Duluth. No one knows why they would plan to be married in such a place, but since both of them are from out of town, it’s suspected that neither of them have ever actually seen the aquarium and just think it would “be cool”. Disappointment awaits.

Wilfred Ryan and Gertrude Rounds, both of Esko, MN, plan to be married June 1 in St. Mary’s Church in Duluth. The couple is so old that many wonder why two people so elderly and decrepit would even bother marrying again. It can sometimes take professional movers up to a week to begin moving a couple’s things into the same house, and by that time, it’s not unreasonable to think either Wilfred or Gertrude may already be dead.

Joe Punto and Nikki Salzwedel, both of Cloquet, MN, plan to be married May 24 in St. Mercy’s Church in Cloquet. Joe and Nikki are both horrendously ugly, making them a perfect match for one another. Both have tried to meet more attractive people, but other than some drunken one-night stands at college parties for Nikki, neither has netted someone like the attractive people they see on TV. They both now claim that attractive people are shallow, and they’d rather “be with someone who has a personality.”

Bill Consley and April Denslow, both of Duluth, MN, plan to be married May 4 in St. Mary’s Church in Duluth. Bill and April both have AIDS, and are getting married so they won’t spread the deadly disease to others. Bill is a boating enthusiast, while April enjoys pilates. They plan to give birth to 3-8 children.

Ben Graves of Minneapolis, MN and Jenny Solomon of Cloquet, MN, plan to be married April 25 at the county courthouse in Duluth. Ben is 21 years old, and Jenny is 20. Both are still in college, and have never lived with a person of the opposite sex. Friends, relatives, and other loved ones give this marriage roughly three years before it ends in bitter divorce. Jenny will become visibly ill after seeing Ben use the toilet naked with the door open, and Ben will become increasingly disillusioned as everything he owns is stuffed in the attic in lieu of hundreds of frilly, oversized throw pillows. “Reality shall begin, and may God have mercy on them both” said Ben’s friend, who is less religious than him and has lived with many girlfriends in the past.

George Flenceman and Sally Ferguson, and also Mike Dudworth and Angie Ferguson, plan to be married September 4, 2010 at the family cabin in Two Harbors. Normally, two engagements would call for two separate listings, but the Duluth News Tribune raised engagement announcement rates by 10 cents last month, and the Ferguson family is extremely cheap. The wedding will be BYOB. Sack lunches will be served.

Gabe Scanlon and Megan Wesloh, both of Superior, WI, plan to be married May 14 in St. Mary Poopenstein’s Church in Duluth. Gabe is wearing a hat in this engagement photo. This is crass, but Megan didn’t say anything because she knows Gabe is sensitive about his premature balding. When asked, Gabe refuses to admit this, claiming he’s just “a really big Minnesota Twins fan.”

Paul Davis and Shannon Spiegel, both of Duluth, MN, plan to be married April 29 in St. God Jesus Savior Hallelujah Lord-a-Mercy Church in Duluth. Shannon’s parents are Frank and Ethel Spiegel of Duluth, MN. Paul’s parents are Shawn and Annie Davis of Duluth, MN. We note this in case you went to school with their parents and wish to see how ugly their child ended up being. Not very ugly, as you can see from the photo. I guess you’ll just have to get over it.

Elsie R. Sharpton of Hibbing, MN was maimed beyond recognition in a local tractor accident on April 18. Witnesses say Elsie, age 89, was sunbathing in the nude when her nearsighted cousin mistakenly ran her over with the tractor. Her face was crushed under thousands of pounds of pressure. The funeral service will be open casket, just to make things interesting. Please call for details.

Frank Coznik of Esko, MN and Nancy Hardwick of Superior, WI, never plan to be married. They despise each other so much that they’ve purchased space in this engagements section just to announce their mutual hatred. Nancy says Frank has an “oddly-shaped penis” and repulses her with his excessive butt hair. Frank says Nancy is “as fat as anything; anything at all” and is so slutty that her sweat is 90 percent semen. The two plan to continue hating each other until death from old age or illness ends one of their lives.

When someone says you have two weeks to live, there are many things you do. You hug your loved ones. You eat a lot of ice cream and candy bars. You play drinking games until six in the morning on weekdays. You max out all your credit cards on stupid crap like Nerf guns and boxes of unopened 1986 Donruss baseball card packs. You remove all the pornography from your computer, because man, that’s a lot of pornography.

You lie down in a field full of wheat, just to see what it feels like. You buy a cream pie and then smash your own face in it, just to see if it’s as funny as you’ve heard. You spend a considerably larger percentage of your time at water parks. You start learning to play the guitar, realize how difficult it is, and instead just play a few crappy riffs and then smash it against the ground like a rock star. You take a handful of money, stuff it in an envelope, and then mail it to a random person in the White Pages who has a funny-sounding name.

I should note that I don’t have two weeks to live. In fact, I’m perfectly healthy and probably have a good 40 to 60 years to live. Which, for some of you who don’t like this column very much, may seem like an unbearable prison sentence from which you may never escape. But sometimes when life gets a little dull, it’s fun to imagine you only have two weeks left to live, and do some of those things anyway.

Maybe you never got the chance to egg someone’s house as a kid. If you only had two weeks left, wouldn’t you? Perhaps you’ve always wanted to crash a stranger’s wedding while wearing an Easter bunny costume. Exactly how long do you plan to wait? Maybe you’ve never seen Japanese anime cartoons, and are curious as to what an octopus fornicating with a schoolgirl would look like. C’mon, man. It’s like three clicks from the main Yahoo homepage. Just do it.

Perhaps you’ve never drank a liter of cognac and then publicly urinated in downtown Duluth. I know there’s only three or four of you in the entire Northland who haven’t, so what’s the holdup? As one of the many who have drank a liter of cognac and then publicly urinated in downtown Duluth – and downtown Superior as well – I can tell you that it’s definitely a rush of adrenaline. It makes you feel like Sid Vicious, or Wilford Brimley when he’s had too much lemonade and the senior shuttle bus is 10 minutes late to pick him up.

One of the greatest things about this world is even if you aren’t capable of doing bad things like egging someone’s house, there are always friendlier alternatives. For instance, as kids my friends and I sometimes would fill water balloons with laundry detergent and throw them at someone’s house. It leaves a hilarious blue splatter all over their front door, but unlike eggs, it’s easy to clean off with a hose. Also unlike eggs, laundry detergent smells delicious.

Gasoline also smells delicious, but that’s another story. And before you add that little gem of information to your theory of why I’m a 30-year-old deadbeat who’s still stuck at a crappy alt-weekly paper, I’ll note that I have never actually consumed or huffed gasoline. Or paint chips. Or skunk urine. All those things are simply rumors.

Anyway, if I’ve learned anything from seeing the movie “Bucket List” – other than that I should really read reviews before going to see a film – it’s that you’re never too mature to do anything. If you’re a lonely 80-year-old woman who has never been with a male prostitute, you should go for it. You should also keep in mind that this male prostitute will probably be gayer than a TV weatherman, but learning is the fun part of trying new things.

You’re also never too exciting to think up new things to add to your “two weeks left to live” list. Goals on my current list include cursing live on a local TV newscast, throwing up on the table at a Denny’s restaurant and leaving without cleaning it up, and getting former Vikings running back Darrin Nelson to personally apologize to me for dropping that touchdown pass at the end of the 1987 NFC Championship Game.

I even have a secondary list, which includes less scandalous goals like catching a foul ball at a baseball game, painting a comically awful picture of my parents and then forcing them to display it in their home for a full year, and writing one humor column that doesn’t include a reference to skunk urine.

Make your own list and start by completing the easiest item, reader. Feel free to steal as many of my ideas as you like, especially the one about throwing water balloons full of laundry detergent at people’s houses. Just please refrain from name-dropping when you’re telling the police why you did it.